Last Saturday, I got an early morning text saying, “Don’t forget, we need to be at church tonight at 7:00.”
Wait, what? Understand, I truly love my church, First United Methodist of Pascagoula, but I’m pretty much a Sunday morning guy. On Saturday nights, I’m usually going out to eat, watching a ball game, visiting with friends, or just chilling at the house.
Turns out the text was from my fellow FUMC usher David Stewart, pointing out that the church was hosting a piano concert, and that we had agreed to be there to perform our usual functions. OK, then. I’ll admit I’d forgotten and was planning on watching the Ole Miss-Missouri basketball game, but when the church calls, I try to respond, so I adjusted my evening’s plans accordingly. Hey, I figured I’d go down to the sanctuary, greet folks, hand out programs, shake a few hands, and head back to the house for the ball game.
The featured pianist was Lynn Raley, a talented musician from Jackson who has performed all over the world. He had been our church pianist John Mitchell’s mentor, thus the connection.
Again, I planned to head out after we had everybody seated and the program had started, but I decided to stay and listen to a number or two. Mr. Raley was performing the works of Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, and Richard Wagner. He gave interesting summaries of the artists and pieces involved, then took his place at the grand piano and began. He was, in one word, magnificent.
Sitting there in a pew toward the back (to accommodate my intended flight), I soon found myself transfixed. Listening to Mr. Raley’s performance was mesmerizing and took me back to a time in my life that brings warm memories.
When I was a kid, I played every sport there was, whatever was in season. I was always outside (or in a gym) playing some game. My brother Bobby, three years older, was not an athlete but was very musically inclined. He took piano lessons from an early age and became an accomplished, concert-level pianist.
From when we were in grade school until he left for college, although Bobby and I weren’t hanging out together at the time, we had an almost daily confluence. Whether it was pick-up, league ball, or a school team, I’d arrive home late in the afternoon from a game or practice. Bob would be hard at it practicing himself on our fine old upright piano in the living room.
I’d come in, toss whatever sports accoutrement off to the side, then lie down on the floor and listen. Bobby would go through so many good, classic pieces—Bach, Beethoven, Debussy, many more—which at the time I had pretty much memorized in my ear. Stretched out on that living room floor, listening to my brother play the piano after I had returned from the competitive battlefields of sports was so calming, so enriching, and—here’s that word again—mesmerizing.
Fast-forward a few years, to when some buddies and I would occasionally meet up at a local tavern to chat it up and solve the problems of the world. One evening, one of the guys said to me, “Man, half the time you want to talk about sports, but then the next moment you want to discuss literature, movies, or music—all that arty stuff.” My reply was, “Hey, you can like both.”
So, on that Saturday evening mentioned above, I got home from the piano concert in time to catch the last half of Ole Miss beating Mizzou. Later that night, I settled into my easy chair to knock out a couple of chapters of my latest read (Love in the Time of Cholera – strange but quite interesting). I also pondered the fact that, if the weather was good, I could play golf the next day, but if not, the Rebels had baseball and women’s basketball games I could watch. With the book in my lap and all those thoughts on my mind, I closed my eyes and smiled, and I swear I could hear Bobby playing “Fur Elise.”
